This is me. Once I got honest with myself about why I procrastinated it became much easier to change. I had to admit that I was over defensive about making excuses for not doing things, a trait I abhor in others but was guilty of myself. I had a false sense of pride and ego telling me I can do things so fast I don’t need to start early. I also had to admit that when I was putting things off I was also telling my loved one that what she wanted was not that important to me.
As much as I hate to admit this, when my ex wife got into a new relationship and the new guy was johnny on the spot about house painting ( he was a painter) and keeping the garage and yard clean I got mad enough to one up him just for my personnal satisfaction. I don’t think I will ever be cured but my symptoms have been gone for well over 20 years. I get things done as soon as I am aware they need doing. I have a horrible fear that if I procrastinate I will slip back into my old ways. My one remaining weakness is my personnal paperwork, filling out forms etc. I set aside 2 days a month to do this and it seems to work. Around the 1st and around the 15th of the month.
List management is number one for me. Having a dedicated, ongoing list of tasks and projects broken into small chunks makes all the difference in the world.
And the ‘Just Do It’ mindset is definitely reinforced through repetition. I also add ‘Do It Right!’ in there whenever I catch myself half-assing some little task or chore.
Understanding that motivation comes from involvement and isn’t something that you wait to happen to make you do something.
Understanding that I don’t have to do everything at once or always be successful. I actually don’t have to clean my room. I just have to pick something I’d like to make cleaner and start there. Don’t even think about doing the whole thing. Break it up into smaller pieces.
Doing experiments and timing and writing down how long it actually took me to do something and how unpleasant it really was.
Learning that I can actually tolerate a little bit of discomfort and that this isn’t the end of the world.
Effortfully taking time out to imagine how I will feel when I reach my goals and not focusing so much on how I feel now.
Being mindful of when I’m making excuses and being brutally honest with myself as to the reality. Not forcing myself to do something, just being aware that “yes, this is an excuse I’m making.” Writing things out helps.
Asking myself why I am resistant to doing something. “Talking back” to my thoughts in writing.
Keeping a schedule. Estimating how long it will take me to do things and writing it out. Then, as I go through out my day, writing next to it what I actually did. Making sure I don’t chastise myself for not doing what I wanted to. But having in writing what I actually did and didn’t do (and sometimes why), so it’s harder to fool myself.
Realizing the world isn’t black and white. If something unexpected comes up or I can’t do as good a job as I thought I could, remembering that I can do whatever it is that I can.
The ten minute rule: you don’t have to get that thing done that you wanted to, but you do have to do it for ten continuous minutes. Anyone can commit to ten minutes.
Taking the time out to feel good about accomplishing something. It used to be that I’d start cleaning my room and I’d get my desk clean. Then I’d say “yeah, but my room is still a mess. And my desk is supposed to be clean. And it shouldn’t have gotten that dirty to begin with. And who feels good about this anyway?” Nope, if I spend five minutes cleaning my desk, I take 10 second and I look at my desk and say “doesn’t that look nice!” and I let myself feel good.
I’ve discovered that I keep deadlines much better for other people than I do for myself.
My main trick at work is to jump on the task right away if possible. Getting it done before the deadline so I can turn it in on time or even a bit early makes me feel good and impresses the boss. I’ve learned not to impress the bosses too much or they start handing out impossible tasks.
I used to put things off. I cured myself (mostly - I still relapse) by making a list every morning of the things I have to do. I put the items I most dread at the top of the list and do them first. Once I get those out of the way, the rest of the day seems a piece of cake.
My eyes started glazing over a bit toward the end here so forgive me if I’m repeating. I should have gone to bed hours ago. So, a couple things.
Listing totally DOES NOT work for me. I don’t know why I procrastinate. I always regret it, it makes me feel really bad about myself, etc. The negative self talk in my head when I’m scrambling last minute to pull together pieces of a project I’ve had three months to finish would drive a person who isn’t used to it insane. The panic and fear and stress during these periods - and they happen all the time - are indescribable. So I routinely have these moments of defiant clarity where I say, “NO, GODDAMN IT! I’M GETTING THIS SHIT DONE!”
And then I list. I have a huge white board and one third is a master work list and another third is all the shit I want done at home. The middle third is where I borrow from the other two to craft my daily task list. I’m looking at it right now. It says 12/6 and just today I had to email the office re: a late project. I can maintain this determination to not be a sack of shit and actually update my lists by completing tasks for maybe two days at a time. Lists don’t work.
I went to six sessions of therapy a few years ago, not for procrastination but because I was a suicidal crazy person for a minute. In talking about self-worth and that negative self-talk, procrastination came up and I got the single most valuable advice I’ve ever gotten but, of course, fail to follow most of the time.
Stop saying you “should” do something. It’s my way of skirting responsibility because I don’t own my decisions. “I should get this paperwork together.” “I should start this project.” “I really should get some laundry done.” Same with “need to.” “Gosh, I really need to wash dishes.” Nothing ever gets done but THAT’S OKAY because I really “meant to” do it.
Bullshit. I meant to find all of the bobbleheads in Fallout.
So I’m told I need to own my decisions and every time I find myself thinking that I really “should” do something, I just change my thinking and either tell myself that I will or I won’t. That really worked for a long time because if I’m reading Dope threads from 2002 and think to myself “I should do this thing that I should have done two days ago…” I kind of feel like a total failure if I have to say “I’m totally not going to do it because I’d rather be an utter waste of humanity right now for no reason.”
I should get back to thinking like that. I was remarkably productive for a while.
I procrastinate when I am overwhelmed by a task. Someone once asked me “How do you eat an elephant?” One bite at a time.
So when I am overwhelmed by a task, I will get a small little notebook. This is my Elephant Book. I break the big overwhelming thing down into bite size pieces. Sometimes ridiculously bite sized. Then I check them off. The more checks I have, the more momentum it gives me. Maybe because it is feeding that perfectionist ideal. I can see real progress by the check marks.
One thing that helps me: good intentions screw you up. I would sit around having masturbatory fantasies about how the musical montage is going to kick in any minute and I’d get everything done in a productive blur. These were wonderful daydreams. However, they were a really bad habit: they gave you the emotional release of doing it without actually doing anything, and, worse, they set up the expectation that I must either crack down and do everything or there was no point.
So, for example, don’t haul ten hours of work home telling yourself “I want to make sure I havew hat I need so that I can do all this”. Don’t have a brief little daydream of going home and working all day Saturday and Sunday. When you do that, you end up with this huge depressing pile of work and once you get to mid-morning Saturday, there’s no point in even starting because you can’t finish. Instead, take home one slim file-folder. Then it’s not as overwhelming, and even if that means the most you can possibly work is a couple hours, that’s still getting more done than usual.